


Rhodonea Curve

by rageprufrock



Series: Bell Curve [7]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-13
Updated: 2011-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-23 17:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A family of curves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rhodonea Curve

"I think you're overreacting," John says.

"I don't think you understand," Rodney tells him desperately.   There's nothing he can do, he realizes with dread.

John laughs and Rodney tries not to smile at the sound.   Even though almost a year has passed since John first reappeared in their driveway, Rodney sometimes still wakes up at night and expects to have the whole bed to himself.

"Rodney, it's a movie about dancing animals--what kids don't like dancing animals?" John asks, indulgent and chiding.

"Ours!" Rodney argues, hyperventilating.  

Shortly after John had come home, Rodney and the illegitimates had an emergency meeting to discuss what they had to keep secret at all costs.   He'd gotten confirmation of John's accusations he'd turned their offspring into mercenaries when he'd found himself bargaining with a five and eight year old, trading secrecy for otherwise illegal treats: Wormhole X-Treme marathons, ice cream, extended bedtimes.

"It'll be fine," John soothes.   "I'll even explain to them how it's exploitive to put animals into situations where they're forced to perform for our human amusements--" in the background, Rodney can hear the sounds of children shrieking and laughing, the everyday noises at the end of a long afternoon outside of the Montessori school where John is picking up the spawn "--anyway, we'll see you at home for dinner.   Wear something pretty," he laughs, and hangs up.

Rodney stares at the phone for a long time before one of his TAs appears in the doorway.

"Dr. McKay?   Everybody's waiting," Danny says nervously.

"I'd tell you to explain that child protective services is going to end up visiting my house any day now and I need to brace myself properly but I don't think they'd understand," Rodney says sadly, and puts away his phone.  

Danny stares at him helplessly.

"Fine," Rodney snarls in disgust.   "Let's do this thing."

 

 *****

 

Rodney got home an hour later and forced himself not to think about the enduring mental scars being carved into the illegitimates by baking a chicken.   He's in the process of whipping some potatoes when the mud room door opens and closes, with only the sound of somber feet to accompany it and John's quiet, coaxing voice saying, "Hey, come on.   Give me your coats."

Andy comes in first, Joanna's hands on his shoulders as they wander red-eyed into the kitchen and give Rodney accusing looks, baleful expressions.  

"Hey," he says awkwardly, setting down the crock.

Andy's lip trembles, and Joanna clamps her hand more tightly down on his shoulder, heroically pasting a smile to her face as she says, "We have to go do a thing," and marches herself and her brother out of the kitchen, through the family room, and up the steps.   There's a quick slamming door and then Rodney's left to stare into John's narrowed eyes.

"So," John says, leaning against a counter.

Rodney tries to smile.   "I made green bean casserole."

John's mouth tightens.

"Uh--with the canned fried onions you like," Rodney tries vainly.

"Okay, cut the June Cleaver act," John snaps.   "What did you do to them?"

"  _Me?"_ Rodney balks.   "  _You_ were the one who took them to a penguin movie!"

It took maybe three seconds for John to connect the dots and remember the last time there'd been an unfortunate incident--the March of the Penguins DVD summarily tossed in to the garbage can and never again mentioned as Joanna wept in her room and Andy built castle turret after castle turret out of red and green and blue Legos in the dining room.

"And  _why_ would a film called  _Happy Feet_ send them into fits of sobbing?" John demands, taking three steps forward and getting right in Rodney's face.   This is a part of him John claims he doesn't have--and it's not like John's a bully, but he likes to loom.   "Rodney: this was a movie about  _dancing penguins_.   They started crying before anything  _bad_ even happened!"

"Oh my  _God_ ," Rodney says, high-pitched.   "You let them see a penguin movie where bad things happened?   What are you--retarded?"

John throws up his hands.   "Even Disney movies have bad things happen!   Hello, Bambi's mom got shot!   Mufasa got trampled by antelope!   Triton got turned into sea...scum, briefly!   The Beast got  _shot_ with  _arrows_.   They never cried before!"   John looks at Rodney intensely.   "Do you know how many times I was forced to watch Beauty and Beast, Rodney?"

"Everybody on this street knows how many times you were forced to watch Beauty and the Beast," Rodney snaps.   "And I didn't do anything to them!"

"You're such a liar!" John retorts.   "One minute, they're fine, the next they're bawling because there're penguins singing love songs to each other.   Andy kept putting his face in my stomach and asking if I was going to leave again!"

"Well, obviously they're so upset because I disemboweled a penguin in front of them and ate of its still-pulsing entrails!"

"Rodney!"

"Okay, fine!" Rodney shouts.   "You want to know?   If it's anybody's fault, it's  _your fault_ ," he says, and takes perverse glee in the expression that creeps over John's face at that.  

He's going to regret this later when they eat cold dinner and the kids don't talk, still listening to the fight echoing up the stairs but Rodney's realized that adulthood, and parenthood for sure, is just an elevated form of faking it, and he doesn't care about being a responsible adult at the moment.

"While you were off doing God knows what," Rodney continues, realizing he's still angry about this somehow, "while you were off not being here, the little monsters harassed me into taking them to that stupid documentary about penguins.   Half an hour into the film the eggs are passed from mom to dad and then the mothers leave."   He scowls.   "Sound familiar?   They _went to the ocean_ , they  _left the fathers_ and their  _eggs_ and went to the sea--and this is where all the crying started the first time--where they are  _attacked by evil seals_."  

John just stares at him helplessly.

"By the time the seabirds started attacking the baby penguins Andy was in full-out silent bawl and Joanna was crying about birdseed!" Rodney continues.   "You  _left_ them and you  _left_ me here to fend off that shit--you  _left us_ and oh my God," he says, horrified with realization.   "I can't believe you  _left us_ \--I don't even know what their favorite  _books are_ , I can't believe you  _left me_ \--!"

"Okay," John says, voice soothing, reaching two gentling hands out to stroke down Rodney's arms and pull him closer.   "Okay.   I know what to do; they made us watch a video on PTSD in the Air Force."

"Fuck you," Rodney says, balling up his fists to keep from hugging him, that fucker.   "You're sleeping in the shed."

"You never finished the shed," John says quietly.   "I didn't know.   Sorry."

"Even better.   I hope it rains," Rodney mumbles.   "I made them promise not to say anything.   I didn't want you to get upset."

"You guys can always upset me," John says, strokes his thumb behind Rodney's ear and murmurs, "I was wrong.   I shouldn't have left.   It won't happen again.   I missed you guys every day--every minute of every day."

Rodney laughs crazily.   "Now you're just saying what you think I want to hear."

"Is it working?" John asks.

"Now it's not," Rodney says, pulling away.   "They were really upset."

"I know that now," John says gently.

"They thought you were being eaten by  _seals_ ," Rodney insists.   "I can't believe you took them to another penguin movie after that--they're going to be in therapy for years."

"Given some of the scenes in that movie?   Probably," John admits, wincing.   And looking at Rodney, John asks, "Were you okay?"

"Don't be stupid, of course I knew you weren't being eaten by seals," Rodney snaps.

"That's not what I meant, Rodney."   John frowns at him, puts a hand on the back of Rodney's neck in an absentminded, possessive move Rodney barely notices these days.   It's a shock to really feel it, to know what a luxury it is to have this be ordinary.

Rodney reaches up to brush three fingers against the teardrop-shaped scar on John's neck, and it only makes him more curious when John winces at the touch.   He asks, voice quiet and breath shallow, "Should I have been scared?   Where did you get this?"

"Would you believe me if I said it was a really, really, really giant bug?" John says after a moment.

Rodney glares.   "No."

"Well, it's the truth," John says, shuddering--Rodney can feel it roll down his body.   "Blue and making these clicking noises.   Horrible."

"You're such a shitty liar," Rodney mutters and shoves out of John's hold, goes to the oven to pull out chicken and green beans because he doesn't know what else to do.   It's still Friday and they still have to eat.    "Dinner's ready."

Rodney has a list of things that the social service people are going to say when they come to take Joanna and Andy away: called illegitimates; allowed to watch TV labeled by the MPAA as PG without supervision; probably have access to pornography on the computer; gay dysfunctional parents; have had penguins ruined forever.   He's not adding "starved" by gay dysfunctional parents who ruined penguins forever to that.

"I'll get the kids," John says quietly and leaves the room.

 

 *****

 

Dinner is predictably miserable, all politeness and "please pass the salt."   The only time the illegitimates are posh is when they're too upset to be horrible and Rodney thinks longingly of screaming and spares an apologetic thought for his own parents, for all the silent dinners they'd endured.

"Feel like desert?" Rodney says, trying to stay bright.   "There's Rocky Road in the freezer."

"We want double helpings," they tell him after a moment of counseling one another with meaningful glances.   "As per our deal," Joanna reminds him.

"Deal?" John asks.

"Deal's off," Rodney says easily, tilting his chin at John.   "He figured it out."  

The illegitimates look equal parts embarrassed and annoyed.

"I  _told_ you he wouldn't believe you were allergic to animated movies," Joanna hisses at Andy accusingly.

"You started crying first," Andy says flatly, narrowing his eyes.  

"You're so  _stupid_ ," Joanna hisses.

"Hey, what's the rule?" John interrupts, frowning.

Joanna sighs tragically.   "Nobody under eighteen can call anybody stupid."

"That's right," John says, laying down his fork and knife across his mostly-full plate.   For years Rodney had worried that John had an eating disorder; then he'd confronted him about it and John hadn't stopped laughing for almost a day so Rodney decided never to worry about that motherfucker  _again_.   "Your Dad squealed; I know all about it."

"Dad!" came the chorus of complaining, and Rodney just rolled his eyes and started clearing the table, giving John a dark expression as he picked up John's plate.   "Don't you three have a conversation to be had?"

 

 *****

 

John and Rodney had a running dispute over who was the was the Bad Parent; Jeannie had weighed in one particularly wretched summer vacation after Joanna had been grounded and Andy puked into the potato salad that they were  _both_ the Bad Parent--but at least they cared.

"You know, that's good," John had told Rodney conspiratorially as Jeannie had rolled her eyes.   Her early shine to John had changed into familial irritation with extended exposure and she'd started referring to him exclusively as 'the wife.'   "She's a psychiatrist.   We can use her for an expert witness when child services comes to take them away."

"You're hilarious," Jeannie had snarled.

"He's not even kidding," Rodney had argued protectively, putting a hand on John's knee.   "We have a plan and everything--we practice it with our fire drills."

Rodney always remembered the way John had looked at him then, tolerantly amused and affectionate, nothing particularly big or worthy of fireworks, just ordinary.  

And that day, bathed in crisp Vancouver sun, Rodney remembers thinking that there was nothing he couldn't forgive John for doing.

John comes in later, when it's dark and quite and the cold is cruel outside of their house, Rodney feels John's icy fingers on his shoulder, though the worn jersey of his shirt, and John's voice saying, "Hey."

Rodney closes his eyes and turns over in the bed, saying, "Hey.   They in bed?"

"I think they're out back torturing some neighborhood pets or something," John whispers.

Rodney's jaw tightens.   "Whatever," he says.   "Go to sleep.   You have a presentation to make tomorrow."

And then there's a long, uncomfortable silence before John says, "Joanna's been separating her stuff into two piles."

"Great, I'll call a family counselor tomorrow, the school will be thrilled we're finally taking initiative to deal with our fractured--"

"She thinks we're going to separate.   Break up," John cuts him off, and Rodney's eyes snap open to see John's face, pale and moonlit, suspended over him.  

Rodney pushes himself up to lean against the headboard, his arms and legs suddenly weak.   He says, "She told you that?"

"She waited until Andy was asleep in the car on the way back from ice cream," John says, eyes looking away, past Rodney and out of their window.  

There're My Little Ponies and army men on parade along the ledge, forgotten there from the last warm day when Andy and Joanna had held a miniature battle in the master bedroom, calling out war cries on the breeze.   John had been forcing Rodney to help him aerate their lawn--what the hell does that even  _mean?_ Rodney wants to know still--and they'd listened to Andy arguing that magical horses totally whooped the infantry even as Joanna insisted they were special ops and that horses sucked.

"She said that she wanted to know first--so she could help him pack for two houses if we were," John finishes.

"What the fuck?" Rodney snaps, mad all of a sudden.   Where the hell does she get off?   He hates being mad at the kids, but he's had a lot of practice, and it takes a lot not to want to push out of bed and ask Joanna if she's been scaring Andy with her stupid stories--if she hasn't been telling her teachers shit about how her crazy gay dads have finally lost it.

"I thought the same thing," John admits wryly.   "I thought I cracked one of my molars trying not to yell at her at the last lights before our street."

"What, did she apologize?" Rodney demands.

"No," John says lightly.   "She told me she can hear us through the vent in her room."

All the fight goes out of Rodney so fast it's like a punch in the gut and it takes a minute before he gets his breath back, before he manages to say, "It's not like we scream at each other every night."

"We yelled earlier today," John points out. "We yelled two days ago."

He sounds defeated, and it makes Rodney even more tired than he already was.   John's longstanding war with his supervisor at work blew up in his face and he took it out on himself by sleeping on the couch in his office--and when he'd dragged in early the next morning looking like he'd been run over by a car, Rodney had passed Joanna the milk for her cereal and pulled John upstairs.   He doesn't even remember if he managed to shut the door before he started shouting.

Rodney grits his teeth.   "That's normal.   Everybody does that."

"We've been doing it a lot," John says quietly.

"So--what?" Rodney says.   "What do you want to do?"

John just rubs at his face, his whole body telegraphing the kind of exhaustion that talks about how Andy's teachers have called him in three times in the last two weeks, how John's been so busy trying to eke out that last measure of efficiency in his latest pet jet he hasn't really slept, how three of Rodney's undergrads were caught cheating.

It makes Rodney nervous and stupid, makes his mouth run and makes him say:

"What?   You're just--what?   Do you want to leave?   Go back to Pasadena?   Start pouring overpriced drinks at strip clubs again?   Maybe you'll meet some other hot astrophysicist--" he knows he's being an asshole now, he can feel it, but his eyes and his face are hot and he doesn't know what to do anymore because Joanna's been  _packing_ for their breakup and it all seems so God damned inevitable in light of her forethought "--and start over?    You'll do better this time. You won't get stuck with somebody who wants you to drop out of the Air Force or accidentally gets babies during office hours or--"

"God, will you just shut up?" John hisses and Rodney's jaw snaps shut.   "This is  _exactly_ \--!"   John forces himself to take a long breath before he says:

"Look, I just thought you should know."

They go to bed angry, two feet between them on the mattress, and Rodney is cold all night listening to the wind shriek outside of their window and watching the outlines of army men against the glass.

 

 *****

 

"Dad, get up!"

He cracks open one eyelid and stars out the window at what appears to be a raging blizzard--God damn Illinois, he spares a moment to think--and closes it again.  

"No," he argues, and burrows further into the covers.   When he opens his eyes to deal with his day, it's going to involve shoveling and fighting with John (again), and he's got enough energy for one or the other but not both.

But then he feels Joanna climb up on the bed, shaking him hard and desperately.   "Dad, Dad, you have to have to have to get up," she moans, and when Rodney finally sighs and rolls onto his back, wondering if he can really be charged for infanticide if he just kills her in frustration, he opens his eyes to see her terrified and sobbing.  

Her face is too pale and streaked with ugly tears and she's near-frozen, hands icy on Rodney's skin and dressed in her pajamas, her pale purple winter jacket thrown over and her sneakers trailing mud all over his bed.

"Oh my God," he says, instantly awake and rocketing upright.   "What's wrong?   What happened?"

It takes her nearly a minute to choke something out in between her gasping sobs.

"I woke up--this morning--and Andy wasn't--there," she manages, heaving for breath.   "And--he's not back and Daddy must have left for work early and I don't know what to do and I can't  _find_ him and it's snowing harder and I don't know if he's wearing his mittens and--" and that was when she trails off into crying again and fear hits Rodney like an 18-wheeler.

 

 *****

 

John's secretary--who Rodney hates--says he's not available and can she take a message, in that vaguely smug tone that implies John spends way more time in her company than Rodney's these days.  

It makes Rodney feel entirely justified screaming a stream of obscenities so astonishingly profane that Joanna's eyes round in fear as he says tells the secretary in no God damn uncertain terms that if she did not  _make_  John available and tell him to come the fuck home then Rodney was going to find their son, and then  _flatten all of Boeing's offices_ \--with a  _hydrogen bomb_.

And before she manages to choke out an answer, Rodney hangs up on her and scoops Joanna from her paralyzed spot on the floor, eyes still huge, and nearly throws her into the passenger seat of the car.

"Where did you already look?" he snarls.

"All over our block," Joanna says, teeth chattering in the cold, hands held out over the car's vents.   "I went all the way down to Courant Street and then back up to the playground and I checked in all the back yards between us except for the ones with fences."

"Okay," Rodney says, backing out into the blizzard and hoping to God he'd put the chains on the car correctly, "not that I'm not proud of you for your thoroughness and retention, but next time if your sibling disappears, you come to me  _first_ , and then you go out looking for him."

Joanna winces.   "I thought you'd be mad."

"Oh, you're God damn right I'm mad," Rodney mutters under his breath, narrowing his eyes to try and see to drive in the snow, mind racing.   Where would Andy go?   Andy likes...LEGOs and differential equations and climbing onto John's lap and staring at him.   Andy doesn't like outside and he doesn't understand snow--"I don't  _get it_ ," he always wails--and Rodney cannot fucking imagine what he's doing out in the blizzard other than freezing to death and making Rodney have heart attacks in medias search and rescue.

"Madder than the time he freaked out at your work party and humiliated you in front of all the other professors?" Joanna asks pointedly, eyes scanning her side of the road, sleeve rubbing circles to clear the glass.

"That was just public embarrassment, which you broke us in with really early on, Miss 'Dad if neither of you have a vagina where do you put your penis' in Toys 'R' Us," Rodney says distractedly, feeling his heart thumping crazily in his chest.  

He has to keep talking or he'll start screaming, because he knows it's irrational but he can't help but think that if they hadn't been fighting again this wouldn't be happening, and if having to remember to come home to John was hard--having to remember somebody else needed to come home to him was all the worse.

"Dad," Joanna whispered.   "Will Andy die?"

"Andy is not going to die," Rodney snaps.   "He'll be fine.   Don't be stupid."

"It's really cold," she says, sounding like she's crying again.   "Dad, it's really cold."

"Joanna, I swear to God," Rodney bites out.   "Just--be quiet.   He'll be fine."

But it  _is_ bitterly cold outside.   Although Andy's parka and boots were gone his scarf and hat and mittens weren't--and the wind is strong enough to rock the car.   He's driving maybe five miles an hour, trying to see through the blur of white until Joanna yells, "Okay!   Okay!   I ran back here!   Stop the car, stop the car!   We have to go--we have to go find him!" and Rodney does, tumbling out of the driver's side and rushing around to grab Joanna's hand--he's not losing both of them--before they take of, stumbling and tripping in the snow, yelling Andy's name into the screaming wind.

He's too scared to feel cold but he sees the headlights coming up behind him, hears the slam of a car door and John's voice shouting over the storm, "Rodney!"

And when he turns around John is coming toward him in the snow, in a solemn, black button-up trenchcoat wearing leather gloves and a look of undisguised fear on his face until he rushes in and grabs Rodney's free hand, says, "In the woods!   He's got a secret place in the woods!"

"Oh my  _God_ ," Rodney yells at him, already feeling John dragging him into the forest, where once he breaks the line of trees at least the wind dies down, and feeling Joanna struggling over roots and branches behind him.  

And it's totally irrational but the nearly painfully tight feel of John's gloved hand around his own grounds him a little, makes him breath easier in the burning cold, and even lightheaded with fear he's glad John's here to be scared shitless with him.

Any other panicked shouting he might have bubbling to get out of his throat gets lost when John let's go of his hand and shouts and falls to his knees, wrapping his arms something, someone huddled in the snow, near a copse of winter-dead pine trees and a tiny cabin, nearly buried with snow, constructed entirely out of LEGOs that had gone missing from the dining room.

 

 *****

 

Rodney remembers being screamed at en route to the hospital, the empty package of lemon cream cookies still clutched in his grubby hands even as paramedics were administering epinephrine.   He remembers his mother's wild eyes and high-pitched panic, and how she kept swearing that as soon as he was okay again she was going to kill him with his bare hands, which even at age four Rodney knew made absolutely no sense.

More than four decades later, he knows exactly how she feels, which is how he ends up being the screaming banshee in the back of the EMS while paramedics are putting foil blankets over his  _idiot moron_ of a son.   He doesn't even know what he's saying or how he's threatening Andy's life or if Andy is actually listening to him through that glazed, frozen expression, but he knows that as soon as Andy stops feeling like an ice cube Rodney is going to kill him with his bare hands.

"We've got him stabilized," one of the doctors says, much later, looking entirely too cheerfully at Rodney and John and Joanna, who pretty much look like refugees.   Two of them are still in their pajamas and John nearly got escorted out of the waiting room when he threw his continually-buzzing cell phone into a cheap vase on a bookshelf.  

"We were lucky, he wasn't hypothermic.   You got to him just in time."   He smiles at them kindly and says, "We'd like to keep him for a few more hours, but he should be ready to go home tonight--you can see him now if you like."  

"Oh thank God," Rodney said, feeling his knees go slack in relief, and ends up leaning on John, who is somehow holding both of them up.   And they make their way into the room where Andy is sleeping, incredibly tiny in the hospital bed, looking untroubled and sweet, face rosy.

"These are your genes at work," Rodney hisses at John as they drag chairs closer to the bed, where Joanna has already climbed up to sit at Andy's side, stroking his hair and singing softly.

John stares at him for a minute.   "Rodney," he whispers back, "they're both  _adopted_."

"It doesn't matter!" Rodney says furiously.   "Your DNA infiltrated somehow!   My genes have a sense of rational fear!"

Rolling his eyes, John says, "Sure, fine, whatever," but takes Rodney's hand when they both sit down to keep watch until Andy wakes up and Joanna calms down.   Later, he tells John quietly, Rodney's going to need his other hand, because when he kills Andy, he's going to need both of them.   "Sounds fair," John agrees.

But when Andy  _does_ wake up, he's so bleary and pitiful and glad to see them, to tell them about how he saw a brown rabbit shivering in the snow and how he put the bunny in the house in the forest, that Rodney doesn't so much get around to killing him as taking turns clutching him to his chest, murmuring into his hair: prayers and praises and apotropeics, thanking whoever's listening.

 

 *****

 

For a moment, he thinks they might actually get out of this with their remaining dignity intact, but once they get home and get Andy in bed, Joanna bursts into tired, frightened tears once more and they all end up slumped together on John and Rodney's bed, piled together on top of John, who isn't even complaining about broken ribs.

"I'm sorry," Joanna hiccups.   "I'm sorry I didn't find him earlier."

"You did your best, and you did help us find him," Rodney tells her, even though he's as close as he can get to sitting in John's lap with Joanna already occupying the space, John rubbing his hand up and down her back, along her small, curved spine.  

"I'm sorry, I--" she gasped for breath "--fucked up."

"It's not your fault, Jo--we all fucked up," John says automatically, and then adds, "Oh my God, Joanna, where did you learn that word?"

Rodney flushes.   "Um."

John sighs.   "Nevermind," he says softly.  

Joanna's hiccupping tears melt away slowly, and she drops off into an exhausted sleep between them.   They're quiet for a long time before John catches Rodney's gaze over her head, and murmurs, "You know, I'm really glad they're both on your insurance--I think I'm kind of fired."

Rodney raises an eyebrow.   "Oh.   Good."

"Good," John says flatly, but with humor in his eyes.

Rodney scowls.   "That job was killing you," he mutters.   "Not in a good way."

"No," John agrees quietly.   "But it was paying for this house.   And their school.   And Andy's counselors."

Rodney takes John's hand, and thinks that it's weird how their priorities shifted, how John once upon a time used to show up at work late so frequently he was bullied into stripping--and now he goes to a job he started hating so he can come home and have screaming fights with Rodney and scare the kids.  

So he runs his thumb over the center of John's palm sweetly, as close to a kiss with fingers as he can manage, and says, "We'll figure something out."

John sighs and closes his eyes, his body finally going slack against the pillows and lines softening around his mouth.   "Hey, Rodney?" John says.

He can't tear his gaze from how they look, the three of them, lying together on this mattress they moved from Berkley to Illinois, on a bed they bought years and years ago.   There's so much history in this room--just in this bed--he doesn't know how to wrap his mind around it.   "Mmm?"

"Thanks," John whispers, half asleep.

"For what?" Rodney whispers back.

"Keeping me," John answers, blurry, tightening his fingers around Rodney's.

It's a long time before Rodney gets a hold of the lump in his throat to murmur, close to John's ear and softly enough not to wake him, "You were always my favorite."

 

 *****

 

They spend most of Friday paying for Thursday's foolishness, with Rodney trudging off to work like it's a death march and Joanna heading off to classes with notes for the teachers.   "Well, it's not like we didn't already have a reputation," John had said cheerfully, handing Joanna two handwritten, SORRY WE'RE REALLY AWFUL PARENTS notes as Rodney hustled her through the door.  

It's probably a blessing in disguise that Rodney's Fridays are terrible: three sections of undergraduate-level physics classes and office hours where master's level students and freshman stand in the hallway outside with doomed expressions on their faces.   Somebody always cries.   But the sheer drama and politics of dealing with a university full of people too stupid to breathe helps to distract him, and he manages to call home only at twenty minute intervals to harass John and Andy in turn.  

"Are you sure you're sure he's sure he's okay?" he needles.   "Because he's six and kind of a robot and he lies like a rug."

"Aren't you supposed to be in  _class_ right now?" John sighs.

"I'm making them do word problems," Rodney says dismissively.   "Don't worry, I have at least ten more minutes before any of these idiots even puts together a formula--" and when he glances up he sees Darren Waterston giving him the fish eye from the third row "--hey, hey!   Head back down, Waterston!   What have I said about eavesdropping on the private phone calls I make during class?"

"Yeah, I can't believe the tenure committee hates you," John laughs softly into the phone.

Rodney's about to tell John exactly what he thinks of the tenure committee when somebody clears her throat--and when he looks up to rip into whichever smartass in his class thinks her three semesters of physics outweighs Rodney's two Ph.Ds, he sees Samantha Carter standing at the door to the classroom instead, looking amused.

"I have to call you back," Rodney mumbles into his cell phone.

"Please don't," John says sincerely.   "We can't  _both_ be fired."

"Whatever," Rodney says and snaps his phone shut, stepping off of the raised lectern and saying absently to his students, "Take those problems home to do, class dismissed."

There's a small stampede of kids making their way to the door, and Carter laughingly sidesteps the crowd, meeting Rodney halfway, canting her hips against a desk in the now-deserted classroom.  

"Samantha," Rodney says, mostly to try the word out in his mouth.

"It's good to see you again, Rodney," she says, dry.   "You have a real way with the kids."

"They're undergraduates," Rodney scoffs.   "Hardly worth the air they breathe."

"You were once an undergraduate," Sam reminds him.  

"That is a scurrilous lie," he counters, and pulling back his shoulders, he says warily, "What is it this time?   Because it's cold enough in Illinois, thanks."

Carter laughs, and holding up her hands, she says, "Rest assured, Rodney, I'm not asking you to spend another month in Antarctica."   Rodney opens his mouth.   "  _Or_ Siberia.   But I do have a proposal for you."

"Yes, because taking a proposition from a woman almost as smart as me and then getting caught with my dick hanging out is absolutely the only thing missing from the perfection that has been this week," Rodney snarls.

There's a choked noise from the doorway, and Rodney looks up to see one of his TAs staring at him, eyes huge and accusing.  

"If you so much as  _think_ of adding to the enormous body of gossip circulating among the faculty about me already," Rodney snarls, pointing at him threateningly, "I'm going to make the shredding I gave to your master's paper look like a walk through the park.   It will be you, me, and your thesis in HBO's  _Oz_ \--am I making myself clear?"

"Sir, yes, sir," Rick squeaks, and as he dashes off.

"McKay," Sam says, mildly reproachful where John would have scowled at him until Rodney had trailed off to make sure Rick wasn't slashing his wrists in the bathroom.

"There's an entire Facebook community dedicated to pooling gossip about me, okay?   I don't like giving them any unnecessary scoops," Rodney says defensively and shoulders his laptop bag, saying, "It's probably a good idea to have whatever conversation you want to have in private anyway."

Sam grins at him.   "Very perceptive."   She glances at her watch and says, "It's about lunchtime--my treat?"

Rodney knows he has about six thousand things to do today before he can go home and fuss over Andy and continue his war of de-escalating tension with John, and at some point they're going to have to sit down and really examine their finances, if John is actually fired, but Sam's  _unbearably hot_ , and it's only the fact that John could kill him in his sleep that keeps Rodney from hitting on her as a knee-jerk reaction.

"God," Rodney moans, trailing after her, "it's going to be all over campus by three."

And later, over a white wine lunch and after three glasses too many of chardonnay, Rodney signs the nondisclosure form without a second thought and listens as Sam talks about wormholes, about the Stargate, about  _the Lost City of Atlantis_ , and how it's Rodney's math, Rodney's physics, that's shown them the way.  

"The initial has re-established contact," Sam tells him, beaming at Rodney's slack-jawed expression.   "We'd like you to come on board for the project, make your contract long term--we'd like you to come to Stargate command, be closer to the science."

 

 *****

 

Rodney manages to get through the rest of the day by virtue of being a cheap drunk, staying buzzed on three glasses through his afternoon class and the faculty meeting where he spends most of his time writing row after row of exclamation points and cost-benefit analyses in the margins of a yellow legal pad, very quietly freaking out.  

On the one hand, oh my God,  _Atlantis_ and oh my God,  _the Stargate_.   On the other hand, he'd have to either uproot the entire family or pull a March of the Penguins--which he swore to several Elder gods could  _never happen again_.

He's almost managed to talk himself out of killing himself in frustration when he walks into the house at half past three to see John at the kitchen table with the laptop, saying, "So Facebook tells me you're cheating on me again."

"I hate Facebook," Rodney growls, tossing his keys aside and setting his laptop on the hall table.   "It's a pox on society--and stop logging in with my email."

"If you really hated it," John said, pushing away from the table, "you'd change your password so I couldn't follow up on your carnal exploits anymore."   Rodney rolls his eyes and John leans in to palm the back of his neck, to kiss him, slow and sweet and strange, after they've spent so many weeks feuding.  

"Hi," John says when he pulls away, grinning.

"Hey," Rodney agrees, the grind of undergraduates and tenure and Samantha Carter fading for the moment, hands sliding down John's back and into his back pockets.   "So.   This is new."

John smiles.   "Or old," he says, ruefully.

"Truce?" Rodney offers, feeling stupid and twelve.

"We should probably talk about what we were fighting about," John reminds him softly.

Rodney scowls.   "You ruin everything," he whines, and tries to pull away, but John grabs him by the biceps and pulls him back in again, crowds Rodney against the refrigerator door until Rodney can feel ugly magnets biting into his spine, papers and pizza coupons crackling behind him.   "Or you could shove me against the appliances," he says mildly.

"We can do this in bullet form," John offers.   "It'll make it go faster."

"You're such a freak," Rodney says fondly.   "Fine.   You first."

"All right.   I'm sorry I left, and I'm sorry I didn't know what it was doing to you," John says, quiet and rehearsed, like he sat around and practiced for an hour before Rodney got home--a possibility Rodney's not willing to dismiss.   He strokes his thumb along Rodney's collarbone with a sincerity that matches his voice.   "And I'm sorry if I haven't been taking it seriously--I spent most of my childhood with only one parent most of the time, and I should know how shitty that is."   A pause.   "And not just for the illegitimates, either."

Rodney cocks one eyebrow.   "That sounded painful," he says wryly.

John winces.   "God, yes," he admits, and sighing, he adds, "But I mean it."

Rodney's throat tightens, because as stupid as it is, he's wanted this so long and so desperately it feels like rain melting across the cracking skin of a desert.  

"Okay," he says, after a long beat.   "Thank you."

"You next," John says gently, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

"I'm sorry I've been such a stone cold bastard," Rodney says, prying the words out of his chest.   "I know I've been picking fights with you about the time you spend at work, and I know that's not fair because you've tried and at some point it's out of your hands.   And also I'm sorry for nursing my evening headache for a month.   And also, I'm--"

John shuts him up with a kiss, which Rodney tries and fails to talk through, so he sighs into John's mouth and loops his arms over John's shoulders.   Whatever, Rodney thinks, it's better than cold war.  

And when John lets him up for air again, Rodney says, too relieved to really be mean, "What, did we go over thirty seconds?   Were you about to slip into diabetic coma?"

"Please," John mutters, nosing Rodney's shoulder, "there's nothing sweet about us."

Rodney lets himself think--but only for a moment--that that's not true, that to Rodney, there's always been something sweet and sweetly improbable about them.   They're outliers, anomalies, disruptions in a pattern, and Rodney's grateful for the mathematical inconsistency of the life he and John have been lucky enough to lead.

"Guys, that's  _gross_ ," Andy says, and they jump apart to stare at Andy, standing barefoot in the doorway with a Spongebob Squarepants fleece blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape.  

"Okay, yeah," John says casually, pulling away to scoop Andy up and bring him over to Rodney, where Andy does his flying squirrel impression and knocks three of Rodney's ribs out of alignment changing parents.   "That's your genes talking there."

Rodney glares at him, palming the back of Andy's head protectively.    "They're adopted."

"It doesn't matter," John teases.   "You infiltrated."

But before Rodney gets an opportunity to do his best Agent Scully 'sure, fine, whatever' of his own, the front door opens and Joanna tears around the corner into the kitchen, eyes bright and yelling:

"Guys, guys!   Okay.   So Greg Hardy puked everywhere today during lunch and it was totally disgusting and then the school nurse said he had something called  _norovirus_ so I have to give you a note about it!"

John and Rodney share an alarmed look.

And then Joanna steps the rest of the way into the kitchen, tugging off her backpack, and running up to give her traditional tackle hug--one day, Rodney swears, their spawn will stop injuring them with affection--to both Rodney and John's delicate knees before saying to Andy, "Hey, Icicle--" which Rodney fears, based on both its inappropriateness and the amusement value Joanna seems to get out of it, will be sticking around for a while "--you done melting?"

Andy glares at her.   "I'm not an icicle!"

"Sure, sure," Joanna soothes, and before Rodney can sigh and say something useless about teasing your recovering siblings, Joanna snaps her fingers--yeah, she definitely got that from me, Rodney thinks crazily--and says, "Oh, right.   Guys--there's totally some creepy blonde lady standing in our driveway."

"Creepy blonde lady," John repeats slowly, and Rodney can nearly see John's military training coming online.

"Totally creepy," Joanna confirms.   "She kept saying something like this can't be the right address--or something."

Rodney and John share another look, one that says they can't handle norovirus and creepy blondes on the same day, that that's just  _unfair_.

It's not a terribly good introduction for Samantha Carter, who chooses at that moment to peer into the kitchen and say uncertainly, "Major Sheppard?"

 

 *****

 

By the time Rodney gets back from setting Joanna up with her math homework and doping Andy into submission with Dimetapp, John and Carter are murmuring in soft, low voices, camped out around the coffee table with untouched mugs.

There'd been a long moment of existential disconnect that had felt a lot like an Abbot and Costello number where John and Carter had stared at one another and said things like, "Colonel?" and "Major?" and "Colonel?" back and forth at each other until Rodney interrupted and said, "Okay--cut it out, that's both freaky  _and_ stupid," and banished them to talk in the living room.

"What are you two plotting?" Rodney demands, shoving at John's shoulder until he sighed and moved off of Rodney's favorite side of the sofa.   "And more importantly," he adds, glaring at John, "how do you two know each other?"

"We used to braid each other's hair at the Air Force Academy," John says, rolling his eyes.   "Talk about our feelings, iron pleats into our uniform pants together."

"Hilarious," Rodney says flatly, and turns to glaring at Sam instead, who is looking equal parts amused and out of sorts.   "Well?" he snaps at her.

"Um, wow, sorry," Sam says, blinking rapidly.   "I knew that you put McKay down as your medical proxy that time but--"

"Oh boy," John sighs, covering his face.   "Thanks, Colonel."

"  _Medical proxy?_ " Rodney says, high-pitched, staring at Sam.   And then turning to John, he says again, even more high-pitched, "  _Medical proxy?_ "

"We just made up," John says feebly, sinking down into the couch under Rodney's poisonous glare.   "Remember the kitchen?   Remember our bullet points?"

"You're right," Rodney says sweetly.   "Let me add one: I am very sorry for the squalor and additional trauma that the illegitimates will be forced to suffer once I kill you in your sleep for--"

"It was just a precaution, McKay," Carter interrupts, laughing, eyes wide and sincere.   "Really."   She waves her hands as if to clear the air.   "Look--if I had known I could have gotten both of you at one time, I wouldn't have bothered with the wining and dining earlier--"

"Oh shit," Rodney mutters when John turns a deeply frightening glare in his direction.   "Thanks a lot, Carter."

She frowns at them.   "Okay, this isn't...turning out the way I thought it would."

And then Rodney's brain connects A with B and C with D and comes up with WTF.

"Wait," he says, interrupting the fit of completely reasonless jealousy John's about to indulge, "What do you mean, 'could have gotten both of you at the same time'?"   He narrows his eyes as Carter's expression softens into amusement again.   "You--there's no way you're here to talk to him about the same thing you were talking to me about."

"Way," Carter contradicts, grinning.  

"You knew about the Stargate," Rodney says to John flatly.

"I  _told_ you I wasn't assassinating people," John says, a smile tight on his face.

Rodney throws up his hands.   "You were on another planet!   That's  _so much better_."

"You know, I've got to hand it to you two, it's really something that you both managed to work on the same top secret government project and never compare stories," Sam says, sounding halfway between impressed and pitying.

Rodney glares at her fiercely.   "I signed a confidentiality statement."

"I told him about the bug, but he didn't believe me," John protests.

"Oh my God," Rodney says in horror.   "The bug was real," he repeats, and then pulls John closer to inspect the scar all over again, because if the bug is real then Rodney's many paranoid and hackneyed theories of John acting as some sort of gay Mata Hari and getting teardrop shaped cigarette burns turning tricks in the line of duty  _aren't_.  

"You were attacked by space bugs," Rodney says out loud, just to gauge the utter stupidity of it in his mouth.  

"It was just one space bug," John countered.

"Wait--you want him to go back and be attacked by more space bugs?" Rodney says, mortified and staring at Carter like she's about to set their house on fire.

"No!" Carter huffs.   "Look, McKay--I was sent to recall you two.   What I said earlier stands: the first wave on Atlantis has re-established contact, and we'd like you on hand full time to work Earthside on Atlantean technology."   Sam looks momentarily sheepish and turns to John.   "And we'd appreciate it if you'd turn it on for us."

"Turn it  _on?_ " Rodney asks.

"It's a long story," John promises, and turning to Carter with a firm smile, he says, "Thanks for the offer--but it's been a long week and we'll have to sleep on it."

"We do?" Rodney says, dazed.

John narrows his eyes.   "Yes, we do."

"Okay, yes," Rodney agrees quickly, turning back to Carter.   "We'll sleep on it."

Rodney didn't like the smirk on her face as she said, "Yeah, I'm sure you will," at  _all_.

 

 *****

 

To be fair, it's not a hard decision.   The Stargate is living physics and Rodney wants it so badly it makes his skin hurts and he knows John knows that.   It's mostly logistics, a matter of when and how and what ifs, all of which John brushes away with a flick of his wrist after he shows Sam Carter the door and tugs Rodney up the stairs of their house.

"Am I being selfish?" Rodney asks nervously.   "To want to go?   It's selfish, isn't it?"

"I went," John tells him, pulling Rodney into their bedroom and shutting the door.

"But that  _was_ selfish," Rodney points out, sitting hard on the foot of the bed, staring at the wall, covered in photographs: Joanna and Andy and John and Rodney, the life they've had here--a memoir on photo paper.

John flashes him a dirty look, but sighs and says, "This is different," coming to sit down beside Rodney on the bed.   "You should go, we should go."

Rodney puts his head on John's shoulder because nobody's watching and they're allowed--very secretly--to be the kind of sweet John doesn't seem to think they are at all.

"What about the spawn?" he asks.

John laces their fingers together.   "I'm sure there're bohemian alternative learning schools in Colorado for Joanna to terrorize, too."    Rodney can hear the smile in his voice.

"What about  _Andy?_ " Rodney pushes.

"We can ask his counselor for referrals," John decides, after a long moment.   "Kid's going to have to deal with change at some point."

"Yeah, that's totally code for he's going to make our lives a living hell for a year," Rodney sighs.

John laughs, and he turns his head so he can say, lips moving across Rodney's temple, "We'll worry about it in the morning."

So Rodney lets John pull the covers over them, lets himself take a late evening nap, and in dreams, lets the possibilities roll over him like a wave, curling like the edges of sheet music dropped in a fire, the sparks floating up like fireflies in the dark.

"Are we really going to do this?" Rodney can't help but whisper.

"I thought we were sleeping on it," John whispers back.

"Okay, okay," Rodney says, and closes his eyes.

 

 *****

 

 **

Epilogue

**

Despite Joanna's insistence that the move will ruin her life and the six-month tantrum that Andy throws at the shift perspective and change in time zones, they somehow manage to drive two U-Hauls cross-country and live in Colorado, too.  

It's different than Evanston--in some good ways and in some bad.  

For one, Rodney finally manages to shake his reputation as a sexual predator since John has to work with these people, too, and can't exactly spend his free time orchestrating an elaborate ruse like he did with the Northwestern faculty.   Rodney only enjoys this for a week until he figures out it's because John's too busy having some sort of very disturbing affair with a flying Winnebago brought back from Atlantis that John's been calling a puddlejumper.

There are drawbacks, too.   Colorado Springs might be a sort of a college town, but it's the U of USAF, and there's nothing free-spirited about it.   Rodney figures the lady with the cross earrings at the grocery store means serious business, and when she scowls, it's not just because John isn't bothering to keep Andy and Joanna from having a slap fight slash shouting match in the cereal aisle.   Rodney tries not to be openly judgmental, but there's an Evangelical church here roughly the size of Jupiter, and that implies a few things about the neighborhood.   Also: Joanna joins the community theater and Rodney's Thursday nights are held ransom by her attempts to act.

"I swear to God," Rodney mutters, turning out the lights and getting into bed.   "I think Andy's digging patterns into our turf."

"Couldn't be any worse than our dying grass," John quips back, curling beneath the covers, groggy from the Percocet that's softening the ache of his newly-broken wrist, snapped by angry villagers on M4X-217, who--unsurprisingly--thought John was a hooker.  

("They always think you're a hooker," Rodney had said morosely, staring at him in the base infirmary.  

"  _You_ thought I was a hooker once," John had mumbled back.

"Oh, God," Rodney had moaned, putting his face in his hands.   "Colorado child welfare is already making their way toward our house, I can feel it.")

"You're the reason the base psychiatrist keeps reminding me about her work hours," Rodney says bitterly.

Colorado winters are just as bad as Illinois, and John spends a worrisome amount of time in and out of the base infirmary for a civilian contractor--a fact for which Rodney spends a lot of time verbally abusing the two marines on SG-2, who have developed a rational fear of Rodney's approaching footsteps.  

 "Actually," John confides, pulling Rodney closer with his good hand, "I think that's just because she thinks you're crazy."

" _Y_ _ou_ make me crazy."  

It's true.   Rodney never knew he could grow to hate the words 'unscheduled offworld gate activation' so much; he can't wait until John turns fifty-five and the military kicks him off of the gate team.   But Rodney can feel John's smile against his shoulder--and it feels weirdly like every kind of reassurance, like all sorts of promises that he knows they might not be able to keep.

John says, "Aw, Rodney--you say the sweetest things."

"I thought you said we didn't do sweet," Rodney says distractedly, shifting around until he's sure nobody's going to accidentally roll over John's cast in the middle of the night, fussing with the covers around them.

"Well," John murmurs blearily, "we can change."

Rodney can make the universe sing the way he never could a piano and John can touch the edges of a galaxy, here, and they can still have the warm floors of a kitchen melting in white afternoon sun, the sound of illegitimates screaming in their back yard, at each other, in the den, the living room, in the middle of the night.

Out loud, Rodney says, "Yes, we can," but privately, as he's falling asleep, fingers carding absently through John's hair, he hopes they don't.

He hopes that as much as they can, things stay the same, because all those years ago, John let Rodney keep him and as stupid as it sounds out loud or in his head, Rodney hopes John stays his favorite--it's brought them luck in the past, it's gotten them here.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote some of the first Bell Curve sequels at the mental image of Rodney taking the illegitimates to a movie and their bursting into tears--what better candidate for making kids weep than March of the Penguins,Which, I swear to God, folks, had my mother and I hear tears unparalleled since we saw the Lord of the Rings trilogy. So of course, when I saw Happy Feet, my first reaction was, "Goddamn it, now I have to write another of those damn sequels." Many thanks to Minervacat, both for going to see the movie with me and for betaing this story that came out of it. Much love. - Pru (2/4/2007)


End file.
